


Genesis

by lofticries



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Character Study, F/M, Fantasizing, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Pseudo-Incest, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 02:04:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19097524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lofticries/pseuds/lofticries
Summary: The opposite of the end is the beginning. After the apocalypse, Five struggles to find steady footing in a peaceful world.





	Genesis

**Author's Note:**

> Lately I've been thinking a lot about the fucked up thoughts Five & Vanya would have about their relationship post canon. As much as I'd like for it to be easy, breezy, beautiful (Covergirl) for them, they both have so many issues it really wouldn't be. So here's just a little taste! It's not my usual stuff but I hope you enjoy anyways.
> 
> 1) If you don't follow me on tumblr/aren't in the Fiveya discord - Jake Gyllenhaal is my go-to older Five  
> 2) There's not any actual sex in here. Just Five's fucked up thoughts. He's not... in a very healthy place here  
> 3) I would listen to Death Cab for Cutie's "Transatlanticism" album bc it triggered my emotional spiral (esp ['Tiny Vessels'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn35dUE0R1k) and ['Title & Registration'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGEyqP0744c))

Five can’t sleep.

He’s been awake for too long, his brain buzzing in that bizarre way when it’s physically tired but mentally stimulated. Except there’s no mental stimulation. The apocalypse is over, he’s back to his normal body. Happy ending, for everyone. Life can go back to normal.

That’s what Allison had said before she left to California, to try to build her career from the ground up. Claire was gone, wiped from existence when Allison didn’t rumor Patrick the second time around. He remembers her walking around the house like a ghost, red-rimmed eyes, breaking her own damn heart. He’d tried to tell her, in some other universe Claire was well and alive, but she’d shouted at him and Vanya gently dragged him away. He’s not very good at this “big brother” thing.

Normal. What the fuck was normal? None of them were normal - they’d saved the fucking world. With their fucked up powers, barely getting by with the skin of their teeth. Five had nearly torn himself apart to save it. The world that he loved.

Now here he was. In his own apartment, in his own bed, surrounded by his own walls filled with equations, still feeling torn up. Meaningless, useless equations. He wasn’t time-traveling anytime soon.

 _You got what you wanted._ Isn’t that right? He saved everyone, saved the world, saved Vanya. All those endless years of blood and suffering, culminated into one satisfying conclusion. The heroes win, happily ever after, holding hands and singing “Kumbaya” around the fire.  

And yet. Luther’s alone in that big mansion. Ben and Klaus have fucked off doing God knows what. Diego is still playing superhero at night. Five can’t fucking sleep. Some shit never changes.

Five stares up at his ceiling blankly. He’s lived through more than most but somehow he doesn’t feel any fucking different. He was naive enough to think peace would be enough for him. Now there’s a new torment of emptiness plaguing his mind, replacing the roar of chaos he’d gripped onto for years and years.

He rubs at his face. He’s not going to sleep. There’s no debate, gets up and blinks out of his apartment without thinking about it. He already knows where he’s going.

-

Vanya chooses to live in the same shitty apartment despite all of their protests. Five looks down on her sleeping face with a frown. Her skin looks paler in the moonlight, hair a dark halo around her face.

 _You’re being creepy._ He is, standing over her while his sister sleeps, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Five’s stomach turns. Somewhere in between nausea and vertigo. He sinks onto the edge of her bed, body wrought with tension.

Vanya shifts in her sleep. “Five?” she mumbles groggily. His shoulders slump at the sound of her voice. Soft with sleep. Not a trace of surprise or urgency. It seems like a lifetime ago, he’d told her to get locks on her window. _Rapists can climb._

No lock could keep him out though.

She calls his name again, and he sighs. “Yeah.” Five doesn’t bother saying anything else. He sees no point in defending his actions. He never has but Vanya is usually his only exception. One look and his walls crumble. But somehow, tonight, he feels like no matter what excuse he comes up with, it won’t stick.

Still, he goes easily when her fist pulls at the back of his shirt, tugging him into bed with her. He gets under the covers and curls his body around her smaller one. He shouldn’t touch her, but he does anyways, one arm draped heavy across her middle. The other hand slips up to her hip, holding it steady. Vanya exhales, pets his hand for comfort before drifting back to sleep.

Five doesn’t sleep. She’s not wearing any sleep shorts - it’s July and the nights aren’t cool enough to warrant her favorite sweatpants. The heat of her thighs passes through the cotton of his boxers.

His erection is purely physical. _Yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night, you bastard_. He buries his nose in her hair, breathing in her scent, and stays absolutely still until morning light creeps through her window. Then he forces himself away from her, lies on his side, waiting for his desire to fade away.

In the morning, Vanya makes them oatmeal with brown sugar and coffee. Her coffee is always too sweet for him but Five will drink it anyways. He staggers into the kitchen, Vanya smiling gently at him. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

“You hate oatmeal,” is all he grumbles in reply. She passes him a steaming mug, shrugging a little. She’s still not wearing pants, legs long and lovely from under her oversized tee. Five pointedly maintains eye contact with her.

“Sometimes we need a little dose of what we hate,” she sighs. Sounds like a line straight out of one of Ben’s shitty poetry books. _Masochist_ , he wants to say to her. Bites it back because - the fucking irony is not lost on him.

They sit across from each other. Vanya’s nipples are visible through her thin t-shirt. Five watches her grimace as she eats her oatmeal while he thinks about spreading her on the table, saying “ _I’m not hungry for oatmeal_ ” and feasting upon her.

Five drinks the coffee quick enough to burn his tongue.

 

-

 

He remembers how fragile things had been between them when Vanya woke up after the first time. The agony she’d put herself through when she realized she caused the very hell that he’d spent forty fucking years in.  “I’m sorry,” she had wailed to him, the house shaking all around them. Even though he’d been in his teen body, she still felt tiny in his arms, weeping like a child as he tried to get her to calm down, _you’ll destroy the house again, Vanya_. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Nowadays Vanya is better about not apologizing mindlessly. Five can still see it forming in her mouth though, the beginnings of “I’m sorry” whenever they’re alone together. Especially when he’s drinking. Her eyes are so sad, looking at him like the mess he’d become is all her fault.

When he’s really fucked up, he thinks about pinning her to the couch. _Apologize to me properly_ , he’d tell her. Demanding it. She can make it up to him, with her mouth, her body, her cunt.

He never does. Just settles for resting his head against her, breathing loud and heavy against the delicate skin where her neck meets her shoulder. Close enough for him to taste.

 

-

 

It becomes a habit to pass out on her couch when Five’s pushed himself to the brink of exhaustion. He wakes up to her fingers brushing his hair from his forehead and hums with content.

If there’s one thing Five regrets, is that he didn’t get to grow up with Vanya. There are parts of her that are familiar to him, her fingers especially. Looped loosely around his wrist, wiping excess sweat from his forehead. They’d had a cold loveless childhood, only warmed by Grace’s artificial love. But Vanya, in her bolder moments, would reach out to him, seeking comfort or affection. Her small hands trembling but sure.

Five always accepted it.

But most of her now, is wholly unfamiliar. It’s disorienting. The girl he knew better than himself was suddenly a powerful stranger. Her melancholy, her fury, her despair. Five knows nothing of it - just as she knows nothing of his. There was no time to get accustomed to her again when they were saving the world. To relearn on all the moments he’d missed when he propelled himself into the future.

Now there’s plenty of time and Five doesn’t know where to begin. Not when all he can think about is the feel of her skin against his. _You disgusting fucker._ Five is not a good brother.

But Vanya _is_ a good sister. She’s worried about his sleeping habits - thinks it’s nightmares. Five thinks she needs to stop talking to Allison so much. Vanya asks him to try therapy. He laughs in her face. When she wilts, his walls crumble, and he grudgingly accepts the little card she gives him.

His therapist already knows too much about him. The Umbrella Academy, Sir Reginald Hargreeves. They try for sympathetic and understanding. Five wants to spit in their face.  “How would you describe your childhood?” 

Five takes a long drink of his coffee. He’s not allowed to drink whiskey so this will have to do. “...Tough,” he replies dryly after a whole minute of silence. He won’t let a stranger have the upper hand. 

He concludes it’s bullshit. If he were to take this seriously, talking to a professional is actually pointless. It’s not like he can tell a complete stranger about time travel. About the apocalypse. The actual stuff that matters. Nobody knows about that in this timeline besides his siblings and a few key people at the Commission. Five had killed the rest already.

He can’t talk about the taste of ash in his mouth from those first years, how it’d buried itself in his lungs, his throat. How he still remembers it vividly, even after seven sweet margaritas. There are some things that just have to die with him.

Vanya hugs him when he comes back and he lets her, like the twisted bastard he is, melting into it. She doesn’t ask him any questions but just makes him his favorite sandwich. He eats it and spends the entire day at her apartment, falling asleep on the couch with her. He doesn’t want to go back to his apartment. Home is with her.

-

Naturally, Vanya had been the one to suggest he start working to deal with his restlessness. He knew he’d drove everyone else crazy in the beginning with his frantic nights, jumping aimlessly, interrupting their peace and quiet with his demands over their safety.

Math is easy. Equations are easy. Five writes a simple paper and submits it to the closest university. Not even a week later, he gets an offer of employment with a grant for research. Vanya beams at him, truly genuinely happy, and he absolutely cannot refuse.

He enjoys the work. He does not enjoy the company of his colleagues. They ask him too many questions, not just about his work, but his personal life. _Why do you still go by Five? Any girls in your life? Have you beat up any criminals with your siblings lately?_

Legally, he’s not allowed to kill any of these fools. Five has never been so lucky for his ability as he usually jumps out of those conversations. Literally.

He complains about it to Vanya and he’s rewarded when she starts coming by at his break, to get lunch with him. It’s the best part of his day. His colleagues start to recognize her but don’t know who she actually is. Five refuses to answer any of their questions.

A lab assistant stares at him strangely one day when Vanya drops his lunch off. “Isn’t that… your sister?” she asks him hesitantly. “The one that wrote the autobiography?”

Five doesn’t look at her, taking a large bite of his sandwich. “No.”

He keeps the lie up. It means that Vanya is his date to every stuffy university function he’s forced to attend because: “You’re the only one who will keep me from losing my mind.” Vanya says yes, every time.

He pays her back by attending all the random outings Vanya’s peer pressured into. Vanya is trying her best to be open with other people. Work on her communication skills. That’s why she lets Klaus and Ben drag her everywhere, calls Allison once a week, and isn’t able to say no when her colleagues ask her to go places.

“This is my brother,” Vanya introduces him the same way every time. Her colleagues always look him over in bemusement. “You don’t look anything alike.”

“We’re adopted,” he’ll drawl, and drape an overprotective, inappropriate arm around her shoulders, daring anyone to say anything about it.

-

The one area she shuts down in is dating. “I’m not ready,” she tells Klaus quietly during family dinner. Their brother pouts with disappointment. Five grips his fork tight enough that the metal bends, resisting the urge to stab the idiot in the forehead with it. He ignores Ben’s piercing look from the corner of his eye. Five will confess nothing to their most perceptive brother.  “It’s just too soon.”

 _You can wait as long as you like_ , Five thinks, nodding at her in encouragement when she looks over at him for support. She can wait forever. Five wouldn’t mind, not one bit.

Leonard Peabody is gone. Five had enjoyed killing him. He will never touch Vanya again.

If Five had it his way, no one else would touch Vanya again either.

Klaus glances at him, shifty and uncertain. Five stuffs his mouth with the chicken parmesan Grace made and chews, staring him down. Klaus swivels back to Vanya. “Well, you just let me know if you change your mind! I know the _sweetest_ guy from yoga - “

“It’s hard to let someone back in,” Vanya confesses when it’s just the two of them. She’s exposing himself to him, all the hurt, bruised parts, and Five recognizes it for what it is. A gift. He holds her hands in his and rubs her knuckles until her shoulders stop shaking.

The rare times Five takes her out, they always have to get all dressed up; Five in his nicest suit and Vanya in some flowy black ensemble. She never wears white. He doesn’t talk much with the other staff, even when they ask him about his theorems. He just introduces her simply, “This is Vanya” and spends the entirety of the night with his hand splayed protectively on the small of her back. A lover's hand.

 

-

 

“Did you know we’re biological twins?” Five tells Luther drunkenly when he’s wandering around at the mansion. Luther’s been going through Dad’s old files while Five’s been sampling the old man’s liquor collection. Reginald was a bastard, but he sure did have good taste. “Fraternal, of course,” he amends at the stupid look on Luther’s face.

The stupid alarm shifts to concern. “Maybe you should drink some water, Five.”

Five shrugs. Nobody takes him seriously when he drinks. Oh well.

He’s bored so he trails after Luther aimlessly. Takes a long swig of his drink when his twin gets all misty eyed at old Umbrella Academy paraphernalia. Tracing his thumb on Allison’s face in an old magazine, over and over. It’s sweet. It’s pathetic.

“Why don’t you ask her to come back?” Five asks bluntly. If Luther misses her, he should tell her. Simple. Five’s sure Allison misses him too. 

Luther’s eyes are wide and glassy as he slowly shakes his head. “No. I love her too much for that.” More honest than usual probably because he thinks Five isn’t going to remember it.

Well now, he just doesn’t understand that. A love that keeps you still. Waiting and waiting for some kind of reciprocation or validation. Five doesn’t understand love like that. Love is agonizing and brutal. A force that keeps you going, even when it’s taken everything from you, blood and sweat and tears. Love pushes you on, even when you’re nothing but a dried up husk.

If Vanya had ever left, Five would’ve fought tooth and nail, torn apart anything and anyone, just to get her back. Beside him, where she belongs.

Five takes another swig, letting the alcohol burn his throat. The burn in his eyes is from it too.

 

-

 

“I’m thinking about getting a haircut,” she tells him one day when they’re brushing their teeth. She bought him a toothbrush when his nightly jumps became a regular thing. Vanya tugs at the long strands with a frown. Five stares at her, uncomprehending.

“You’ve always had long hair,” he says stupidly. 

Vanya laughs at him. Apparently not. After she’d moved out, she cut her hair short. A pixie cut, she calls it. Five can’t imagine her with it, and Vanya tugs her hair into a little bun and tries to show him. “It looked - it looked better with bangs.” 

Five remembers the bangs. She’d always had bangs. It’d been strange seeing her book in the future, the adult picture of her with her forehead on display. It sounds stupid to say, but it broke his heart a little. That adult Vanya, was a Vanya he didn’t know.

And now the pixie cut. Another part of her Five doesn’t know. He wonders what that young Vanya went through, being on her own for the first time. If she enjoyed what she learned at school, the company of the people she met. He wonders if she ever missed him. He wonders what kind of life she lived, while he was catching cockroaches for lunch and washing it down with stale wine. 

_She’s right here. Ask her, you asshole. Just ask her._

“I like your hair long,” is all he says. Vanya looks at him for a while, letting go of her makeshift bun, her locks sweeping her shoulders. Five wants to dig his hands into it, tight in his fist. With her hoisted onto the bathroom counter, her pajama pants off.

“Maybe I’ll keep it then,” she replies softly.

 

-

 

Her violin remains in the corner, locked in its case, completely untouched. She still reads music theory, listens to Vivaldi, and hums her favorite concertos under her breath, but to his knowledge, she hasn’t played since that night.

Five hates that it’s his last memory of her with the violin. The most vivid too; her lit up in ghostly white pulling a horrifically beautiful melody from the strings. He tries his best to remember her playing at ten, eleven, twelve. She’d been awful at first, but she kept at it. Five had admired her determination.

He wants to tell her that she’s allowed to play, if she wants. If it’s what she loves, she’s allowed. But he doesn’t want to push her. Maybe this is her own way of repenting. As painful as it is.

Five doesn’t know anything about staying away from the things you love. He’s too selfish for that.

 

-

 

“Are you a virgin?” Klaus asks him once during family game night. They’re playing Monopoly and Five is winning by a long shot. Diego’s gone to jail four times already.

Ben groans in annoyance. _“Klaus!”_ Diego makes an exaggerated gagging noise and Luther immediately starts chastising him about appropriate topics during family time. Despite himself, Five looks over at Vanya. She’s gone still, staring down at her cards. His stomach drops.

He needs a damn drink. Luther’s hidden all the liquor after his last black-out, so he is painfully sober. “I’m going to ignore that.”

Klaus is insistent. “I’m just saying - you’re old and hot now. You’ve got plenty of free time. I sure hope you popped your cherry, Mambo Number Five.”

“Technically he’s older than all of us - “

“Klaus why the hell are you like this - “

“Can we _please_ get back to the game - “

Five clears his throat. Loudly. “Your interest in my sex life is disturbing,” he narrows his eyes at Klaus. “And none of your damn business. Go to jail.”

Klaus squawks. “I didn’t even land on that!”

Chaos erupts once more and Five avoids looking at Vanya, silent throughout the entire exchange. He doesn’t want to think about those late nights, drunk out of his mind, mixing dark and clear, taking shot after shot. Anyone would do back then. Five didn’t care. So long as their hair was brown and straight, and he fucked them from behind. It was easier to pretend that way.

 _You sick fuck_. Needless to say, that habit didn’t last very long. You can only drown yourself in substitutes for so long before you start craving the real thing.

 

-

 

Five, by some grace of God or other entity, always happens to be sober whenever she drinks. He comes to pick her up when she calls him, steadily ignoring the fact that she can just catch a cab home. She’s loose and happy, giggling openly and taking his hand. “Five!” She always says his name so sweetly, no trace of sadness or guilt. It makes him want to bend her over in the middle of the street.

He lifts her easily whenever she struggles to walk, opens the door for her, takes off her shoes after he dumps her on the couch. Vanya wiggles her toes at him, smiling like she has a secret. “Do you ever think?” she asks him when he brings her water.

“I always think,” Five replies with snark and drinks in the sound of her laughter. He waits for her to catch her breath until she stops, looking at him intently.

“Do you ever think about what would’ve happened if I had gone with you?”

Ah. Five’s heart clenches. Their peace is a lie because the past isn’t through with them. It never will be. He thinks about it for a moment. If he’d waited a moment more for her to come bursting out of the front door after him, seizing her hand. Jumping through time together, laughing until they reached the future. A future that wasn’t dead or bleak, just older and less-familiar. The two of them facing the rest of the world together. 

There are still things he hasn’t told her. So many things. How the absence of her nearly drove him crazy. How he read her book hundreds of times, committing it to memory, his vague recollection of her teenage voice echoing in his head. _Five was my sole confidant._

He viciously envies the Five Hargreeves who exists in another timeline and gets to grow up with Vanya. That little fucker doesn’t realize how good he has it.

Five smooths her hair back. Lets her lean into his touch. “Things are better this way,” he lies through his teeth. If he lets himself mull over the “ _what could have beens_ ”, he will be lost. He won’t be able to hold anything back. He’ll ruin her for good. “Everything is as it should be.”

Vanya’s eyes are dark with emotion. “You’re right,” she whispers back. His hand tangles in her hair and she allows it for a moment before pulling away to go to the bathroom.

Five stares at her back and hopes with every fiber of his rotten soul that she’s also lying to him. 

-

When they were younger, Five had promised her once they’d run away together. That all she had to do was survive just a few more years, he’d master his spatial jumps, and they could get out of the house in an instant. They never talk about that promise. Not even vaguely alluding to it. Five thinks the betrayal of him breaking it hurt her too badly. His complete shatter of her trust was too much to deal with so the only way she could move on was to forget all about it. 

Five can’t forget it.

 _Move in with me,_  he wants to tell her sometimes when she comes over to bring him dinner. They have some strange unspoken rule - he can jump to stay with her any time, but she never stays at his. Part of Five fears that she knows he would not be able to resist the sight of her in his bed.

There’s so much he wants to say. _Stay the night. Stay every night. Let’s run away together. Remember that old promise?_  

There’s an emptiness in his sister’s eyes. He sees it clearly, even though she tries to cover it up, because the same emptiness is in him. It’s been there ever since they came back. A black chasm that sprouted from the placid nothingness of peace.

Five wants her to recognize it too. That terrible emptiness that plagues both of them. Wants her to realize the only option for the two of them is to drown themselves with one another, let the hollow spaces in between their ribs be filled. He wants it. He wants her body, her soul, her mind. He wants to devour her, and let himself be devoured by her.

_I won’t leave you alone, this time. I promise._

Vanya shifts in her sleep, sighing. Five gently takes her wrist in his hand, feeling her pulse. He thinks about what it would feel like to be inside her. If he slides deep enough, will he take permanent residence in the middle of her lungs? When he moves inside her, will their hearts beat at the same time? 

Vanya turns in her sleep so that she’s facing him. Five strokes at her skin and watches the muscles in her face move. Her dreams, Five wants those too. Whatever it entails.

-

On his sixth session, his therapist folds their hands together and looks at him with a knowing glint in their eye. “Let’s talk about your sister.”

Five calmly gets out of his seat and walks out. He goes straight to the diner with his favorite mimosa special and drinks and drinks until he gets kicked out, stumbling back to his apartment, completely trashed. He doesn’t want Vanya to see him like this.

She’s understanding when he tells her it didn’t work out. “I appreciate you trying,” she tells him genuinely. Five feels like even more of a bastard, especially when she lets him sleep beside him again that night. Letting him use her warmth for comfort.

Five wants to tell her, the only therapy he needs, is her naked body against his, tossing and turning in the sheets. The taste of his name in her mouth. Her body melding to his.

But he also wants to get down on his knees, plead forgiveness while emptying his guts of his sin. Bend his head at her feet and beg and beg and beg. _Sister forgive me, I am not a good brother._ But she’s not ready for that.

And neither is he. He is a sinner, a filthy liar, a dirty no-good bastard. He knows this, all too well. It’s because of the way he is, his true nature, that he will never confess. To protect this shaky precious thing between them - unspoken and known all at once. Sleeping in her bed at night, tender touches behind closed doors, her too-sweet coffee. He’s greedy, refusing to let go, even though he doesn’t deserve any of it.

Five wants Vanya’s love any twisted way he can get it. And Vanya, good sister that she is, will keep giving it to him.

**Author's Note:**

> _All I see are dark grey clouds_   
>  _In the distance moving closer with every hour_   
>  _So when you'd ask, "Is something wrong?"_   
>  _I'd think, "You're damn right there is, but we can't talk about it now._   
>  _No, we can't talk about it now."_
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> [tumblr.](https://www.igpitn.tumblr.com)


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